By Donna Westfall – August 11, 2016 – Unlike www.crescentcitytimes.com with no income, no hired reporters or staff, the Triplicate newspaper has plenty of hired help to get the news.
If you are a regular subscriber to the Triplicate, you probably received a flyer offering a deep discount if you extend your subscription for either 6 months or one year. Why are they doing this? Many newspapers are doing this in order to create an immediate infusion of dollars, because many of them are losing money and hemorrhaging cash.
We hope that is not the case with this newspaper, however many long term subscribers have told us that they are leaving the newspaper just because they see a real lack of local news. I stopped subscribing because I was sick and tired of the Donna Westfall bashing, biased reporting, and sometimes outright lies. But canceling my subscription does not mean that I don’t want them to do the job they were paid to do.
Let’s take a case in point:
We wonder where is the reporting on the recent board of supervisors meeting?
Where is the reporting on the recent changes taking place at Pelican Bay State Prison?
Where is the story on county employees who get paid so little that they are on food stamps and have to show up at the local food bank?
Where is the story about boy scout Daniel Standring’s project to rehabilitate the Gateway signs at the entrances to the county?
One interesting item out of Tuesday’s board meeting concerned a request from the city of Crescent City for $2,000 to help with the two day celebration of an event called “Find your Parks.” There was a lengthy discussion about where the county was going to get the funds. Eventually it was decided that the $2,000 would come from some already allocated funds in the Health and Human Services budget.
With this long discussion about where in the budget the funds would come from, we wonder where the board of supervisors will find the $60,000 it will need to fund Phase II of the airport project. If you recall, we wrote about this earlier with the story about the airport being terminal because Supervisor Finigan’s partners for the project backed out. Now the county will be on the hook for those funds. Of course, you will never see that story in the Triplicate. The only time it may come to light is when Finigan is forced to beg the rest of the board for the funds. I would assume it would come under the “consent agenda” where there would not be any discussion and be passed 5 to 0. We can only hope that some courageous supervisor like Supervisor 1st District, Roger Gitlin would pull the item so that it gets a full airing.
Or what about old stories that never had coverage like Dave Egan and the BlackHawk Pistol story that is on-going 5 years later involving civil rights violations?
Don’t get me wrong. I want to see the Triplicate survive and prosper because competition is good, but it needs to print stories in a timely manner, and it needs to print stories important to our community. We hope that many of the stories listed above, get a full airing in Saturday’s edition of the paper.
When I got the letter, after having paid a full year’s subscription less than 2 weeks before I got the letter, I called the Triplicate Office, and ask what in the heck was going on, and can I get that discount on my current subscription that I had paid less than 2 weeks ago, and they said NO. They wanted me to send in ANOTHER 85 bucks, and get it added on to my current sub. When I explained that those tactics made me wonder if the Triplicate would even be still in business in 2 years, I was not – too – pleasantly brushed off. Lo and Behold, I got a phone call from David, the circulation manager. After a somewhat lengthy conversation, he assured me that, while he could not issue any type of refund, he would see to it that my one year already paid subscription would be extended for another 6 or so weeks, for the 10 dollars.
It has become just another advertising rag. And most of the advertising is out of area vendors. 85.00 a year for what?
It’s too bad. The Triplicate used to be a very good newspaper. It had true professionals running it like Publisher Jim Yarbrough who was tough as nails on the competition but he made sure that every letter to the editor got published. At one time it had great editors like John Pritchett and Steve Yarbrough. They were never afraid to take a stand and published editorials on a regular basis. Right or wrong, you always knew where the paper stood on an issue.
Today, the Triplicate is just a shell of its former self. The publisher seems to be overworked having to oversee two newspapers, both the Triplicate and Pilot. The editor’s policies just don’t make any sense. Just when most readers want to have information from those candidates who are running for office, our editor prohibits then from writing letters to the editor. When he sets limits on letters to the editor and Coastal Voices pieces, he lets his favorite people violate those rules while making other writers stick to the limits. It seems he has one standard for his friends and another standard for the rest of the writers.
I feel the same way about the Triplicate. We saw a serious accident on Tuesday just north of Good Harvest and had to find out about it on FB. Two people killed, one seriously injured, alcohol involved isn’t local news. There are no longer any letters to the editor. It’s a shame.
well, i guess when you are getting a regular paycheck and nobody is minding the hen house..the fox will take until he goes broke… scratching his head in bewilderment when final failure arrives;;1…as usual, the twilight zone is alive and well in Crescent City California….laziness is the norm, and professionalism is non-existent.